the BLOG

When Marley Blonsky told me that she was “the least artistic person ever,” I mentally tented my fingers into an evil-genius pose and cackled with (silent) maniacal glee. In my ongoing social experiment to bring performance art virgins to On the Boards for the first time, Marley was precisely the participant I was looking for. She may have started the night never having seen performance art, but she left saying “I will forever associate the junior queer prom with Ted Nugent.” Clearly, progress was made.

As Taylor Mac expressed himself in his interview by Diana Nollen on Hooplanow.com: while us usually presents poetry in a relatively neutral way so audiences can hear the words without the reader's bias, that's not the case with his performance. Taylor Mac said, "I'm full-on using my subjectivity and visions to interpret these poems in the way I want them to be interpreted." I am sure some audience had hugely enjoyed Mac's full-on personality/subjectivity, while I and my personal experience during the show fell into the shadowy side of the spectrum.

The Predator Songstress was a performance of contrasts. The Songstress, a woman of a 1000 facial expressions, portrayed a depth of feeling and the life in her eyes told of a story of loss. The intensity of the acting and beauty of the dance and music, evoked in me emotions of desperation. Terror and hopelessness, playful joy and courage, reaching for hope only to have it pulled away and the feeling of being squashed all collided in my heart. Contrasts of beauty and shadow, light and dark park places of the undying spirit of a young girl tortured by loss.

Skylar and Ben went to Whole Foods on their way to the performance to get raspberries and a salad respectively. Skylar also needed coffee, and Ben discovered there was a large area dedicated to eating and drinking beers on tap and such. He couldn't believe people would want to eat dinner at a grocery store.